Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

As with all concrete structural systems, prestressed hollowcore floor plates have a good inherent fire resistance which has been shown from the behaviour of actual buildings following real fires. However, concern has previously been raised about the fire performance of hollowcore floors based on some examples of premature shear failure of individual units in standard (small-scale) fire resistance tests. Due to the fact that the poor performance witnessed in some small-scale standard fire tests does not correspond to observations from real fires in actual buildings, it has been argued that the cause of premature collapse is a consequence of the unrealistic small-scale and boundary condi - tions related to the standard test.